


Costing not less than everything

by EarthboundCosmonaut



Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Feast of Feasts, Grief/Mourning, Hilda Spellman is a precious bean, Loss of Faith, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-Canon, Zelda Spellman is Bad at Feelings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EarthboundCosmonaut/pseuds/EarthboundCosmonaut
Summary: "Give me a sign," she whispers into the night. "Give me a star to navigate by."The Dark Lord is not required to give her anything. It is presumptuous to ask. She drifts further from his path with every day that passes.In the aftermath of Edward and Diana's death, Zelda questions everything.
Relationships: Hilda Spellman & Zelda Spellman, Zelda Spellman/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 27





	Costing not less than everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PeachGlitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachGlitch/gifts).



> This fic is a response to a prompt from PeachGlitch, who asked for Zelda "having to let go of the religion she was so devout to". It was supposed to be a one shot, but things got out of hand. As usual.
> 
> There is a brief, non-graphic description of sexual abuse. It's in the third flashback (the italicised sections). If you want to avoid it, stop reading at the paragraph that ends " _the fear that she may have failed already,_ " and skip ahead to the section break.
> 
> This isn't intended to be a companion to _No matter how far you go, I'll never be far from you_ , but if you wanted to read it that way you totally could.

_Zelda was not quite two years old when her magic manifested for the first time. A toddler’s temper tantrum erupted in a shower of sparks that might have caused serious damage to their wooden house if her parents had not been in the room. It was rare for magic to manifest itself in a child so young – it was seen as a promise that the Dark Lord would bestow great gifts upon the child._

_Her mother was honoured that the Dark Lord should bless their family in such a way. Her father was appalled. Even at less than two years, his daughter was wilful – always challenging his authority. Why should she have been favoured over his sons? Magic was the Dark Lord’s gift, but that gift came with a price. In return the Dark Lord demanded a rejection of the False God and the dedication of the eternal soul to him. He feared Zelda lacked the character to obey as the Dark Lord demanded to be obeyed: that she would squander her blessing and bring shame on the whole family. He undertook to ensure that she did not._

* * *

Father Blackwood visits them a fortnight after Edward and Diana disappear. Ostensibly to update them on the progress of the search for their plane. _What’s the point_? Zelda thinks, as she watches Hilda serve him tea and cake on pretty patterned crockery that hasn’t been used in decades. Sabrina sleeps heavy in her arms, her head a dead weight against her collar bone. The babe cannot bear to be put down. She screams and reaches until someone comes to her. Zelda understands because she cannot bear to be alone either – cannot face what waits for her in the solitude. She has scarcely put the child down in days.

She half-listens to the hum of their voices as they talk. Her hand moves gently over Sabrina’s fuzz of golden hair. When she closes her eyes the world shrinks down to the scent of sweetened milk and the determined rise and fall of her little chest. She times her own breathing to it. For as long as this tiny heart beats, hers might keep beating too.

The scrape of sharp fingernails across her knee startles her back into the moment. Father Blackwood is leaning close, staring at her with curious crystalline eyes. “Did you hear me, Sister?”

“Where is Hilda?” she asks, glancing at the empty spot beside her where her sister had sat a moment before.

“Gone to fetch some cream,” Faustus tells her. His hand does not move from her knee. “How are you faring?”

“I’m fine,” she tells him.

He tilts his head to one side, his expression a mask of sympathy. “It is natural to grieve, Zelda. We all feel Edward’s loss.”

“Do you? And tell me Faustus, what is it you have lost?”

He pulls away from her, his spine stiffening at the bitterness in her tone. “A colleague. A confidante. A _friend_.”

Colleague. Confidante. Friend. What weak, inadequate words. How could they possibly contain Edward? Edward who has been the rock on which her whole life up to this point has been anchored. Edward who has left a hole vaster than the ocean that claimed him. Sabrina shifts against her shoulder, sharp little fingers wrapping around a lock of her hair. The drowsy weight and the pressure against her scalp is all that is holding her down.

Faustus’ expression shifts to pity and she wants to scratch it off his face. He settles back in his chair, toying with the cuffs of his shirt. “The Council needs to appoint Edward’s successor as High Priest. No one else has put themselves forward, so I will be inaugurated into the role at dark mass on Sunday.”

He is watching her. He expects her to feel something about this news. What? What does she care about the games that men play? “Congratulations,” she tries. The word sounds flat and lifeless.

“I wanted you to hear the news from me,” he murmurs.

She nods. He’s told her. Perhaps he will leave now.

But he doesn’t.

Hilda returns with a little jug of cream. Zelda understands from the searching way her gaze darts between the two of them that she had contrived her absence to give them time to talk.

Hilda does not seem satisfied with the result of her machinations, although she gives them both a bright smile as she resumes her seat. “How are things at the Academy, Father?”

“The students were, understandably, shocked at their Director’s passing. Things are starting to return to normal now. Although you are missed, Sister Zelda. Brother Lovecraft’s attempts to cover your classes have been less than successful.”

“Oh Zelds,” Hilda lays a gentle hand on her arm. “That’s no good, is it? Perhaps it is time for you get back to teaching.”

Her hands tighten reflexively around the babe in her arms. “I cannot leave Sabrina.”

“We could review the timetable,” suggests Faustus. “Group your classes across fewer days.”

Hilda nods encouragingly. “There we go. That could work, couldn’t it? I’m sure Ambrose and I can look after little Sabrina a couple of days a week while you’re at the Academy. It’ll do you good to get out of the house.” So this is their plan.

Sabrina stirs in her arms. The little hand that holds onto her hair pulls, and then a thin wail starts up. Zelda rocks the baby, pressing a kiss into her downy crown. “It’s quite impossible. As you can see,” she says, rising to her feet, “I am needed here at present.”

She takes the fussing babe upstairs, pacing the landing until Sabrina calms and can be distracted by the coloured beams of light cast by the stained glass window. Still she lingers. She cannot go back into that room and subject herself to any more of their concern.

Eventually she hears Hilda apologising for her behaviour as she shows Faustus out.

“Think nothing of it,” he murmurs. “If I can be of any assistance, you have only to ask.”

Zelda tiptoes back to her bedroom. She lies on the bed with Sabrina cradled on her chest, so that when Hilda inevitably comes to check on them she can pretend that she is sleeping.

* * *

_When she was a child, her mother would read them stories from the Satanic Bible before bed. When it was her turn to choose, Zelda always chose one of the stories about Lilith: Lilith fleeing the tyranny of the first man and the False God; Lilith surviving – thriving – in the wastelands beyond Eden; Lilith using her powers to nurture the Dark Lord back from death; Lilith bending the knee – the first to accept the Dark Lord’s offer of power and protection; Lilith returning to the Garden in a doomed attempt to rescue Eve; Lilith leading armies of demons against the False God’s followers. Over and over she listened to those stories, until she could recite them by heart. How she wanted to be like Lilith. How she wanted to be loved by the Dark Lord as Lilith was loved._

* * *

She does not return to the Academy. There would be traces of Edward everywhere: in the library he had so zealously curated, the office that Faustus Blackwood has no doubt claimed as his own, the classrooms where the echo of his voice still resonates. She cannot face it, any more than she can face the sympathy of her colleagues, or the snide comments of the traditionalists who whisper triumphantly that Edward’s death is a sign of the Dark Lord’s displeasure at his reforms.

She cannot face the desecrated church either. She goes once – for Faustus’ inauguration. Every time she glances at the man standing at the altar, she is hit anew by the realisation that he is not Edward. Edward lies at the bottom of the sea, being eaten by creatures until no trace of him remains. Everywhere she goes she is reminded of the yawning chasm of his absence. It threatens to swallow her, until she too drowns and disintegrates.

She stays in the house, grounded by the reassuring weight of Sabrina in her arms. Her world shrinks to Sabrina. Little Sabrina whose heart-rending cries speak of a loss to match her own. Little Sabrina who depends on her. Little Sabrina who is all that is left of Edward. She cannot manage anything more.

* * *

_The night before her dark baptism, Zelda made her first Satanic confession. She knelt before the High Priest, nervous lest she forget something, and confessed a childhood of sins. When she had finished the High Priest rose and stood before her, his hand resting warm and heavy on the top of her head._

_As she had been instructed by her catechist, Zelda did not lift her gaze from the point on the floor to which it was deferentially lowered. He was quiet for a moment and she tensed, worried that her confession had not been acceptable. Then his hand stroked through her hair._

_“Sister Zelda,” he murmured, his words echoing around the enclosed space. “The Dark Lord has revealed to me that he favours you. It is his desire to bless you with great power on your baptism. But you know that he demands something in return?”_

_She nodded. “I must sign my name in his book.”_

_“That’s right.” His hand continued to stroke through her hair. “And you must swear obedience to him. You have chosen the baptismal name Lilith. Do you admire Lilith?”_

_“Yes Father.”_

_He chuckled breathily at the fervour in her voice. “Then you know that the Dark Lord asked her to submit to him, just as he calls all witches to submit.”_

_“Yes Father.”_

_“For your penance, Sister Zelda, the Dark Lord requires that you submit to his righteous representative, as Lilith submitted to the Dark Lord himself.”_

_“Yes Father.” He removed his hand from her hair. She waited, her eyes still lowered, uncertain what to do next. The catechist had told her that she would be asked to say a prayer or conduct a ritual for her penance. Did the High Priest expect that of her now? Was she expected to have prepared something? Panic pricked her skin – the fear that she may have failed already._

_She heard a rustle of cloth and then he commanded her: “Look up.” She raised her head. The High Priest stood before her. His trousers were unbuttoned, his penis exposed. “Do you understand what is asked of you, Sister?”_

_She shook her head, tears stinging her eyes. She didn’t understand. She hadn’t even been baptised and already she was failing the Dark Lord._

_He smiled benevolently. “Then I will guide you.” He reached down, cradling her face gently between his hands, and drew her forward. “Open your mouth, child.”_

_Zelda obeyed._

* * *

As Sabrina gets older she starts to sleep through the night. The evenings are quiet times – dangerous times. Ambrose spends them in his bedroom, music pounding through the ceiling. Hilda tries to fill them with chatter and busyness and, on one particularly disastrous occasion, board games.

It ends with Zelda overturning the parlour table. Dice, toy bank notes and little figurines of a dog and an iron scatter across the Persian rug. Hilda, still sitting on the opposite side of where the table used to be, stares up at her. There are tears pooling in her blue eyes.

“Do you have to ruin everything?” she asks, her chin trembling.

“It’s a stupid game,” she complains, crossing to the sideboard to pour herself a drink.

“You’ve played it hundreds of times before.” She can hear the rustle of Hilda’s clothing as she bends to gather up the fallen pieces. “The problem isn’t with the game.”

“Oh, so it’s me is it? I’m the problem?”

“It’s been almost a year, Zelds. You have to start trying to get back to normal.”

“Normal?” she demands, turning to glare at Hilda. “What normal? My brother is gone – my High Priest, Sabrina’s parents. Nothing is _normal_ any more.”

Hilda dumps the pieces back in the box. “You have to start living as though you have a future again. This funk that you’re in will continue for as long as you keep wallowing in your feelings.”

Feelings? If only she _had_ feelings, instead of this chasm in her chest where they were supposed to be. “Don’t psychonalyse me, sister. Just because you can pick up and carry on as though nothing has happened, it does not give you the right to tell me how I should behave.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hilda rises to her feet. Her fists are clenched at her sides. “How _dare_ you? Do you think I don’t feel sadness? Do you think that just because I still get up in the morning and keep the house clean and put meals on the table and make sure you don’t _drink_ yourself into an early grave that it means I don’t _care_?” She advances towards Zelda. “Answer me this: who else will do it if I don’t? Ambrose? _You_? It’s a good day if either of you bothers to change out of your pyjamas.”

She tugs the lapels of her kimono closed defensively. “I don’t ask you to do those things.” It’s not what she wants to say, but it’s the only response her mind can give form to.

They stand toe to toe. Tears run in ugly tracks down Hilda’s cheeks. Zelda stares at her. It is not often that she manages to goad sweet, accommodating Hilda to anger. And only ever when she has done something truly unacceptable.

“I need you,” Hilda says unsteadily. “I need you to pull yourself together. I can’t do this on my own.”

She looks at the dark shadows under her sister’s eyes and regrets that she is – at least in part – the cause of them. Hilda doesn’t deserve to suffer. But she also knows that she cannot do what she’s asking of her. She drains her glass and refills it from the decanter. “You don’t need me Hildie. You have always been the strong one.”

She moves to pass her. Hilda grabs her arm, gripping hard. “Where are you going?”

There’s fear in Hilda’s face and she’s too tired to unpick what it means. “For a cigarette.”

Hilda looks at her. Zelda feels the brush of her mind at the edges of her consciousness, shrinks from the contact. Finally Hilda releases her arm. “Fine. I’ll come and check on you in a little while.”

“I don’t need you to check on me,” she mutters as she walks towards the front door.

“No,” comes Hilda’s voice from behind her, “but I will anyway.”

* * *

_When she was twenty-two the Dark Lord asked a dark devotion of her: she must harrow her sister._

_Hilda was newly arrived at the Academy, ripe with power after her baptism. Zelda caught glimpses of her in the hallways, wide eyed as she was jostled and teased by her classmates. The sheltered world of their family home had not prepared her for the experience of the Academy._

_At night they would sneak away to the library together. Zelda answered the questions that her sister had been to shy to ask in class, and when the homework was finished Zelda read to her from the Satanic Bible, just as their mother had read to them at home. Before they returned to their dorms Hilda would hug her tightly, pressing her body into Zelda’s. “Thank you,” she whispered. “You are my only friend here.”_

_Zelda tried not to let the Dark Lord see her tears when he told her how he required her to honour him. Hers was not to question but to obey: that was the whole point of a dark devotion._

_Hilda cried when she realised that Zelda had not come to help her with her homework. “Why?” she sobbed, as she stood in the centre of the witches’ cell, already shivering in her bare feet. Zelda could not tell her._

_She realised at that moment why the Dark Lord had asked this particular devotion of her. Her love for her sister was too fierce. If she was not careful it would tempt her away from the Path of Night. The Dark Lord sought to remind her that she must love him before all others._

* * *

When her cigarette has burnt down almost to the filter she lights her next from the embers. She lies on the damp grass, staring up at the sky. It is a clear night and thousands of stars shine in the heavens above her. She cannot see them moving, but her body is somehow aware of it. She feels herself tilting precariously as the Earth spins away from them. It is moving fast, she knows. Too fast – she cannot keep up.

She inhales deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs until it is bitter and scorching, then exhales, blowing a ring of smoke up towards the dark vault. _I offer you the breath from my lungs. What more can you ask of me_?

The Dark Lord doesn’t answer. He has not answered her prayers in months. She knows that is no reason to stop praying: the Dark Lord is not obliged to gift her with a response. She has promised obedience to him and she must honour her promise. But she thinks – when she allows herself to think at all – that this would be easier to bear if she understood his intentions. Had the Dark Lord taken Edward and Diana because, as Hilda is so fond of saying, the Dark Lord wants to keep those dearest to him by his side in Hell? Or is it as Edward’s critics whisper – that his reforms strayed too far from the Path of Night and the Dark Lord struck them down in punishment?

 _Give me a sign_ , she whispers into the night. _Give me a star to navigate by_.

The Dark Lord is not required to give her anything. It is presumptuous to ask. She drifts further from his path with every day that passes.

Hilda’s voice floats across the lawn. “Zelds, it’s time to come inside now.”

Zelda glances up. Hilda stands on the edge of the porch, the light from the open door blazing behind her in a ring of hellfire. She knows that Hilda cannot see her from where she stands – in the darkness the sky and the ground and her prone body are indistinguishable. “Zelds,” she calls again, an edge of panic in her voice, “It’s freezing out here. Come into the house before you catch your death.”

Zelda rises from her position on the lawn, her limbs stiff and aching. “I’m coming, sister,” she calls. Her voice is hoarse from smoke and cold. Hilda’s shoulders slump in relief.

She climbs the stairs to the house slowly. She feels every one of her three hundred-odd years.

“You’re not even wearing shoes,” Hilda scolds as she reaches the top of the stairs. “Honestly,” she says, ushering Zelda towards the house, “you have to start taking better care of yourself. What would baby Sabrina do without her Auntie Zelda, hmm?”

 _Baby Sabrina would be fine_ , she thinks. _As long as she still has her Auntie Hilda_.

Hilda stops just short of the house. Zelda hears her breath catch. “What is it?” she asks.

“Look,” Hilda tells her, pointing towards the front door.

Zelda looks to where she points. A lamb’s entrails are pinned to the front door, still glossy with blood.

“Oh,” she murmurs.

She had asked the Dark Lord for a sign. She had not imagined that this would be the answer.


End file.
